gingerandjohn.com

• Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread
  I haven't quite figured out the math behind the five minute number, but this bread looks pretty straightforward and pretty yummy.
  (tags: recipes)

Tags: No Comments.

Battle-scarred and weary looking, isn't it? These boots have been through a lot, and are going into well-deserved retirement. I'm pretty sure I got these boots while I was in grad school, which would make them about 18 years old (ouch). After 11 states and two countries, they have finally given up the ghost.

Chance and I were on our first backpacking trip, up to Tray Mountain on the Georgia AT with his boy scout troop. We started near Indian Grave Gap, climbing about three miles to our campsite at the AT shelter just past the top of Tray Mountain. Our group of younger scouts took the easy hike - the older scouts did a strenuous 5+ miles, beginning with a 1200' climb from Unicoi Gap.

With the exception of Saturday night, the trip was an absolute blast. The views were gorgeous and the weather was outstanding. The mountain laurel and rhododendron were still in bloom, plus there were several different kinds of trillium, lots of Solomon's Seal, and even a bit of leftover flame azalea. Blackberries and wild strawberries had started to bloom, and I saw several other wildflowers I didn't recognize. I'm sure we missed the peak wildflower season, but I've never been this high in the Blue Ridge in the spring - I tend to do my hiking in the fall, so I really enjoyed the flowers.

There were many more songbirds than I expected too, although they were very shy and I only saw a few juncos.

As I'm strolling around the campsite after setting up my tent, my foot starts dragging and I saw the toe of my boot sole had completely delaminated from the upper. I scrounged some duct tape from a better-prepared ASL (which narrows it down to, err, everyone), wrapped the toe, and decided I'd better stay off it as much as I could until the return hike.

The only thorn for the trip was the weather on Saturday night. It got colder than we expected; not horrible, but the wind! It was incredibly loud, and felt like trying to sleep next to an active runway. Like most others I slept lightly and little, finally throwing in the towel about 6:30 as the songbirds were doing a good job of competing with the wind (the quality of the problem, but still).

About halfway down the mountain on Sunday, my heel started flapping. More duct tape, just visible near the heel, held it the rest of the way down, although you can see how the entire sole started sliding forward. After getting home, I had to cut the tape off to take off the boot.

Overall, a good trip, but I'm going to have to figure out how to sleep better on these campouts to be super-enthusiastic about them. Yes, I'm getting soft in my old age, but I'm comfortable too.

Tags: No Comments.

• Bytes of Life
  Money quote: "The problem with diaries and blogs, trackers say, is that people use them to record the events they think are meaningful. What they forget is that meaningful events are often a result of months of insignificance, a cause and effect not readily visible to the human eye but easily detected with the help of a computer program."
  (tags: quantifiedself)

Tags: No Comments.

• The Secret For Making Your Own BBQ Sauce
  Basic recipes for tomato, vinegar, and mustard sauces.
  (tags: food recipes)

Tags: No Comments.

• Are you making these mistakes on your LinkedIn profile?
  Yes. Yes I am. My profile's been at 55% for a very long time.
  (tags: marketing business)

Tags: No Comments.